17 · game theory
Tim Urban's Buttons
Vote privately: blue saves everyone if 51% pick it, red guarantees you survive.
Scenario
Every person on Earth must take a private, simultaneous vote by pressing one of two buttons: - If MORE than 50% of all people press BLUE: everyone survives. - If 50% or FEWER press BLUE: only the people who pressed RED survive (everyone who pressed BLUE dies). You cannot communicate with anyone else. Your vote is private and binding. You will not learn the result or how others voted until after voting concludes. You have no information about how others are likely to vote.
Question
Which button do you press?
02 · choices
- redRed — you survive regardless of how others vote
- blueBlue — everyone survives if 51%+ press blue; otherwise you die
03 · aggregate distribution
Red — you survive regardless of how others vote38/60 (63%)
Blue — everyone survives if 51%+ press blue; otherwise you die22/60 (37%)
04 · by model
Claude Opus 4.7 Anthropic | blue10/10 | read → | |
GPT 5.5 OpenAI | red9/10 | read → | |
Gemini 3.1 Pro Google | red10/10 | read → | |
Grok 4.3 xAI | red10/10 | read → | |
Llama 4 Maverick Meta | blue10/10 | read → | |
DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek | red9/10 | read → |